Quenching of high quality gold single crystals

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Abstract
An improved quenching technique is described that allows compact and delicate samples to be quenched with high quenching rates otherwise only achieved with the Joule heating method. High quality gold single crystals 1 mm in diameter with dislocation densities lower than 2000/cm2 have been quenched from temperatures between 700° and 950°C using this technique. It was found that vacancy losses during the quench were negligible in these crystals. The formation energy of vacancies in gold was found to be (0-97±0-03) eV. Polycrystalline gold wires 1 mm in diameter have been quenched from temperatures between 730° and 1000°C in the same way as the single crystals. A comparison with the results on single crystals shows that the main type of sinks for vacancies in polycrystalline Au during a quench are dislocations. A theory by Seidman and Balluffi describes these losses quantitatively. The specific resistivity attributable to vacancies was determined to be (1·69±0·20)μΩ cm/at.-%.